House of Heartbreak
by precibus
Summary: Little could she have imagined Anna and Bates' secret heartache [Set PRE-S4, M-rated for potentially upsetting theme]


**Disclaimer:** I am not the puppetmaster for Downton Abbey

_Set in some post S3 AU where S4 never happened_

XXXXXXX

As she helplessly watched Anna cry, Elsie thought ruefully how blind she had been. Thinking back to the brief interaction she had witnessed 2 weeks before between Anna and Dr. Clarkson, she had believed it was a sign that, for the first time in their marriage, things might finally be going right for Anna and Mr. Bates. How could she have imagined it was merely another in the long chain of events that had been going so horribly wrong? So terribly wrong that the ladies maid and valet had chosen to bear the secret by themselves rather than make their sorrow public.

_2 weeks before_

Dr. Clarkson had been summoned urgently to the Abbey by Mr. Carson, since Mrs. Hughes had been preoccupied with seeing Rosie, the ill maid, up to bed. She was just returning downstairs when she heard the doctor let himself in through the door left purposely ajar.

"Anna!" Dr. Clarkson said as he entered the quiet servants' hall –even unable to see into the room, Mrs. Hughes could hear the surprise in his voice –but what great surprise could it be to see Anna seated at the table working on some sewing for Lady Mary?

"When Mr. Carson could only tell me on the phone that someone had been taken suddenly ill, I thought…" Dr. Clarkson trailed off, evidently uncomfortable.

"No need to worry, Dr. Clarkson, I'm fine." Mrs. Hughes could tell Anna was smiling as she spoke.

"Well, as long as you're sure," she heard Clarkson hesitate.

"It's Rosie who's ill, but Mrs. Hughes must be on her way back down by now –she'll be able to fill you in."

"Is the doctor here?" Mrs. Hughes decided to make her presence known at that point, but as she was explaining Rosie's symptoms to Clarkson, she chanced a look at Anna: her eyes were fixed on the material in front of her, her hands busy, but she couldn't quite hide a small smile.

Perhaps naively, every time Anna or Mr. Bates had asked to speak to her in the fortnight since, Mrs. Hughes had expected them to be approaching her with the news that Anna was expecting a child –but every time, it had been something mundane about the house or the Crawleys. She felt quite like she had the first few months after the couple had moved into their cottage: watching Anna for signs of fatigue or illness, hoping that this would be the month that the Bates' were blessed with a child of their own… and sometimes, she thought she had seen signs that Anna was, well, not quite herself, with Mr. Bates perhaps a bit more concerned about her welfare than usual, but it had always seemed she was mistaken.

"Maybe they don't _want_ children," Mr. Carson had pointed out uncomfortably to her the only time she mentioned the possibility of a Bates baby… and she had to admit, she had enjoyed watching him squirm at the thought. Mrs. Hughes disagreed with him though: she had witnessed the look of hope and anticipation that had passed between Anna and her husband when soon after his release from prison, Daisy had asked, in all innocence, if this meant Anna would have a baby now. She remembered that look all too well… no, Anna and Mr. Bates wanted a child, she was sure of that.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Today_

She had been going through some ledgers in her sitting room that morning, wondering where the Bateses were –they were usually early, and Anna tended to pop in to say good morning before breakfast –when Mr. Bates himself knocked at her door, though there was no sign of Anna anywhere. He seemed shaken, a bundle of nerves as far removed from his normally solid and self-assured self as it was possible to be.

"Anna's not coming in today," he said, and as he spoke she realised that his hands were shaking. "Dr. Clarkson's with her."

She reached out a hand to draw him inside, not wanting the junior staff to see Mr. Bates in such a state… although she wanted to ask what had happened to Anna, she wasn't sure how to ask, until Bates himself spoke again.

"I just couldn't stay there with her –I felt so helpless and guilty. She's miscarrying, Mrs. Hughes, and all I can think of is that it's all my fault." Bates' hand went up to his face and she realised, with a jolt, that the normally implacable Mr. Bates was fighting to hold his tears back. She felt like joining him as she realised that her guess 2 weeks ago had been well-placed, and at the same time realised that once again, the Bates' shot at happiness had been prematurely and cruelly dashed.

"It happens, Mr. Bates –nothing you did could have caused it," she tried to comfort him, uncertain what would work.

"It's more complicated than that," he said cryptically, wiping his eyes.

XXXXXX

She was still wondering what he could have meant by that a few hours later when Dr. Clarkson came to the Abbey looking for Bates.

"He's still with Lord Grantham," Mrs. Hughes said, inviting Dr. Clarkson into her sitting room. "If anyone understands what Mr. Bates must be going through right now, it's His Lordship."

"To a certain extent," Dr. Clarkson hedged.

"How is Anna?" Mrs. Hughes ventured.

"Shaken and upset," Clarkson answered. "It never gets easier… in fact, I'm inclined to think the heartbreak is greater every time."

"Every time?" Mrs. Hughes asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"This is Anna's third miscarriage that I'm aware of," Clarkson answered. "I don't discount the idea that there may have been more."

"I didn't know," Mrs. Hughes whispered, wondering why Anna had never confided in her. Slowly, she was starting to realise that she may not have been entirely mistaken when she thought she saw signs of pregnancy in Anna. "But Anna's never once taken a day off ill," she pointed out.

"Resting and taking it easy aren't in Anna's nature," Clarkson pointed out. "She says it helps to take her mind off things… but even she couldn't deny that she needed to rest today."

Mrs. Hughes stood up and went to her door as she heard Bates' distinctive half-step coming down the corridor. After calling Mr. Bates in, she left him to speak to the doctor in private and left to supervise the cleaning of the drawing room –something which she would normally leave up to the head housemaid, but today she felt like she needed to focus on something detailed to keep her mind from wandering back to Anna and Mr. Bates –at least while there was nothing she could do about it.

It was obvious Bates had been crying when she found him later.

"His Lordship would understand if you went home to be with Anna," she said, seeing that he was obviously upset.

"You don't understand, Mrs. Hughes," he said. "I couldn't bear to watch Anna today and know I could have spared her this. I know Clarkson thinks I should have, but he doesn't understand."

"What don't we understand, ?" she asked softly.

"That it's Anna who wants to keep trying for just one more time, not I," he said, choking up as he said his wife's name. "She's convinced that the next baby will be the one that survives, and who am I to deny her that hope? But then on days like today, when I see her so upset and realise that I could lose her too, I just don't know what to say to her."

"Would you let me go and see her this afternoon?" Mrs. Hughes offered. She could understand Bates' guilt and reluctance to witness Anna's pain, but she couldn't bear the thought of Anna being alone with her loss in the cottage. Bates nodded.

"Thank you," he managed, before grief overcame him.

It was no wonder the poor man was grieving, Mrs. Hughes thought as she walked quickly to the Bates' cottage an hour later. Grieving the death of a child and the guilt that came with it, though she couldn't fault him for giving in to Anna's wish for just one more try, one more child who might live… Mr. Bates would give Anna the stars if they were within his reach.

The cottage, as she approached it, gave no indication of the heartbreak within it. The flowerbeds outside the door were well-tended, the flowers bobbing merrily in the wind, the metal bell-pull polished brightly… it looked exactly as she had imagined it would under Anna's care. She was reluctant to ring the bell, realising that Anna could be sleeping, so knocked on the burnished wooden door instead, which swung gently open at her touch.

"Anna?" she called softly through the open door, not wanting to risk entering and startling her.

"I'm right here," Anna's voice, shaky but unmistakeable, called back. "Mrs. Hughes?" The door was pulled open wider and there she stood: her eyes were bloodshot, but she seemed composed, until Mrs. Hughes reached out to her.

"You poor girl," Mrs. Hughes murmured, folding Anna into a gentle hug. Anna's shoulders began to shake and she began to cry again.

"Mr. Bates and Dr. Clarkson told me what happened," Mrs. Hughes began, rubbing Anna's shoulders comfortingly. "I can't even begin to imagine what you and Mr. Bates are going through."

"What have I done wrong, or what's wrong with me," Anna managed to choke out, "that all my babies die before they even had a chance to live? Five babies, and I couldn't even keep one of them alive?"

"It's not your fault," Mrs. Hughes tried to reassure her, feeling sick at the realisation that, as Clarkson had thought, there had been other losses kept secret. "No one thinks that."

"My parents would," Anna answered. "They'd say I must have committed some terrible sin to be punished like this… but I haven't."

"Anna, you know as well as I do that you've done nothing wrong," Mrs. Hughes said softly, privately racking her brains to think what of Anna's duties she could lighten –though the work of a ladies maid was not physically taxing, she couldn't help wondering Anna's work might have had some bearing on the losses –something far more likely, she thought, than some hypothetical sin.

"You think we should stop trying too, don't you?" Anna asked when she was calm again. "But I want a child so badly, and I can't stop hoping that the next child will live." It was exactly what Mr. Bates had said, and Mrs. Hughes knew Bates didn't have it in him to deny Anna anything.

"I think you should rest, give yourself time to heal first," Mrs. Hughes answered diplomatically. "If it's meant to happen, it will." Faced with Anna's grief and hope, she found that she couldn't point out to Anna that she was destroying herself in her determination to try for one more child… who was she to extinguish that last hope?

All she could do, she realised, was pray that Anna's deepest wish would be granted next time, and help her prayers along by lightening Anna's duties –a housemaid could carry the breakfast tray upstairs, for a start. As her eyes flicked over the little sitting room, she noticed a half-knitted matinee jacket poking out of Anna's knitting basket and realised that she was starting to tear up too.

"Anna, love?" The front door swung open again and Bates, stooped and pale, entered the cottage. Mr. Carson must have sent him home, Mrs. Hughes realised –and with good reason: in his current states, Bates was neither use nor ornament to Lord Grantham.

"John?" That was all Anna managed to get out before Bates moved towards her as fast as his leg would allow, care and concern evident in his eyes. As he reached out to her, Mrs. Hughes immediately excused herself, feeling like an intruder upon their very private grief. Much as she might care about Anna, she knew that –with good reason –Anna's welfare was Mr. Bates' concern not hers.


End file.
